Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Responding to Stupidity

Sometimes, one’s initial reaction in a situation — professional setting, social discourse, event gathering, etc. — requires a momentary pause; and it is precisely that couple of seconds of gathering one’s thoughts which saves one from further putting fuel upon a potential fire.

Perhaps you have every right to have responded with a drip of sarcasm; or others would have approved of the lashing back; and still others would say that the response was appropriate and deservedly given.  But the greater question should always be:  how effective was the response; did it evoke the necessary end; and for whose benefit was the aggressive retort given — for the benefit of truth, or for one’s own satisfaction?

In a professional context, of course, it is probably never appropriate to respond in an unprofessional way, if merely by definition alone.  Similarly, in a FERS or CSRS Federal Disability Retirement context, when one receives a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there are statements made — whether one pertaining to mis-application or mis-statement of the law; or perhaps a wrong reference to a medical report; or even more egregious, a selective use of a statement from a medical report or record taken out of context — which can deservedly provoke a response involving sarcasm, a deluge of epithets, or worse, a barrage of ad hominem attacks — and in each case, it would be neither appropriately given, nor proper in a professional sense.

Fortunately, paper presentations and paper responses have the advantage of time over social discourse and person-to-person contact.

Holding one’s breath and counting 3 seconds, or 10, or perhaps an eternity, is an effective way of avoiding catastrophe.  Writing a diatribe of what one wants to say, then trashing it, is also acceptable.  On the other hand, beware of that “send” button; and, moreover, never push that “send to all” button.

That would indeed be unprofessional.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: The Initial Denial & Reconsideration

In the Animal Kingdom, there are artificial classifications superimposed by a class of individuals commonly and generically referred to as “scientists”, in which more generalized identifiers are further categorized, until you reach the “genus” classification, and within that genus, the “species” classification.  In the objective world of animals, such classifications are irrelevant and taken no notice of.  Instead, the necessity to be able to identify various species is essentially based upon the ability to recognize one’s natural predators, as well as one’s food source.  

Such anthropomorphic imposition on ordering the world for purposes of our understanding of the world was recognized by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, and the ability of Man to impose his a priori categories upon the objective noumenal world.  But in the world of Man, especially for the Federal or Postal employee who has prepared, formulated and filed a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, it is important to understand the categorized arena within which he or she finds one’s self in.  

Thus, when an initial denial is received by the Federal or Postal worker, it is important to understand that filing a “Request for Reconsideration” does not take the Federal Disability Retirement case out of the hands of the agency which made the initial denial — instead, it is within the same agency (the Office of Personnel Management), but assigned to a next “level” in order for both the Federal or Postal employee to get a “second bite at the apple“, as well as for the deciding body (OPM) to review the case afresh, along with any new or additional evidence which the Federal or Postal employee can supply to OPM.  

This methodology of a second “review” makes sense, in that it allows for the deciding Federal Agency (OPM) to have a chance at correcting itself in the event that its initial decision was made in error, before it is allowed to be appealed to an independent, separate entity, called the Merit Systems Protection Board.  Thus, that same categorization and ordering of the world, superimposed upon the Animal Kingdom, is also utilized in the world of Man.  The same agency, but different sections; if the second review fails, then it is kicked up to a different genus — before an Administrative Judge at the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire